Island Studies Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2007, Pp. 141-158 BOOK REVIEWS
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Island Studies Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2007, pp. 141-158 BOOK REVIEWS SECTION Refereed Papers from the 2nd International Small Island Cultures Conference, Museum Theatre, Norfolk Island Museum, Norfolk Island, 9-13 February 2006. Editor: Henry Johnson. Published by SICRI (The Small Island Cultures Research Initiative) – www.sicri.org/. The emphasis in this text is on expressive aspects of culture: six papers on music and performing arts; three on literature and linguistics; two each on media, ethnography/anthropology, circulation of knowledge and practice; and one each on tourism and photography. Each highlights criteria by which their origin or evolution on an island influenced their shape or function. To begin with music, Jennifer Cattermole examines how Fijians of Taveuni island incorporate elements of internationally popular songs, instruments and tunings into their own songs and music to express their own identity. Chatham Island, lies cold, isolated and sparsely populated far to the east of New Zealand mainland: hardly the context for much creativity. So it is not surprising that there are few locally generated songs. Intermarriage between indigenous people and European settlers and incorporation into predominantly European New Zealand society led to church music playing a significant role during the last century, and popular dance music with guitars, saxophone, and other instruments; but television and CDs are more important for the younger generation. Henry Johnson examines the adaptation of Okinawan performing arts to the expectations of tourists, a major source of income there as in many island cultures, accompanied by familiar debates as to what is “authentic”, “sacred”, “unique” … and the unstated issue of what pays. He focuses on the Eisa dance and musical accompaniment during the Bon festival when ancestors’ souls return: but tourists come throughout the year so Eisa is performed in theme parks continuously. The amazing complexity of music and dance in the tiny but heterogeneous population of the Furneaux Islands off Tasmania, Australia, is explored by Robin Ryan. Small groups of Aborigines and Europeans lived together to preserve mutton-birds in the 1800s and about one third of people now identify as Aboriginal. Elements of their traditionally-inflected dance and music persist through the haze of influences from European sailors, missionaries and immigrants from all over the globe, injecting their own instruments and patterns of expression. The Seychelles Cultural Group in Perth is the topic of Rachel Shave’s study of how they promote Seychellois culture and awareness of its contribution to Australia, creating their own space and identity while integrating into Australian society. Seychellois, descendants of French, African, Indian, Chinese and other immigrants (there was no indigenous population), have drawn on all those sources to create a unique genetic, cultural and musical heritage. Book Reviews Section Susie Khamis of Christmas Island also migrated to Australia. She set up restaurants featuring dishes from her homeland with its Arab/Muslim-derived traditions. Philip Hayward looks at adaptation of introduced music and at locally originated music on Norfolk Island. He did not find any old songs from the sailors of the “Bounty” mutiny, but did find that “Pitcairn hymns” carried the stamp of Norfolk identity. From the 1980s local composers have created songs in the Norfolk dialect of English, and CDs have facilitated their dispersal. While on the subject of Norfolk, Peter Mulhhausler’s chapter examines the origins of unique items of local vocabulary and the way they evolve in small island contexts: in this case, from Tahitian and various English dialects of the mutineers, and from environmental and historical contexts. Rebecca Coyle’s chapter on Radio Norfolk as it evolved from the 1920s, illustrates the common task of islands radio - promoting the local while also being a channel for the foreign. As elsewhere it is challenged by television, podcasts, online radio services and other media, but still finds a valued niche. Turning to literature, Peter Goodall analyses a fictional autobiography on radical changes in Guernsey (Channel Islands) life from 1890 to the 1960s, which remains torn between its French and British heritage. From a culture where it was “hard to imagine the sheer amount of religion”, the autobiographer felt Guernsey had “sold out” and become a “whore of a place” due to distant markets, tourists and financiers. The Isles of Scilly are the focus for Marea Mitchell’s analysis of Robert Maybee’s ballad on the wreck of the HMS Association in October 1707, exemplifying the prominence of environmental hazards on small islands and the radically different interpretations of the same events by islanders and mainlanders. Two aspects of culture change in the Cook Islands are featured. Charlotte Chambers examines the influence of commerce and “scientific” knowledge on traditional resource prohibitions that protect clam stocks. Wendy Cowling studies how traditional material culture was abandoned or adapted to the extent that it appeared less effective than introduced substitutes. Tourism’s impact on island cultures is mentioned in many chapters but is focal to Stephen Royle’s on the Falklands where British settlers evolved their own culture over eight generations of residence. The small town and the highly dispersed, self-sufficient, rural ranching people exhibit two “dialects” of that culture, with eco-tourism “eroding” both. Environment is a feature of many chapters, but Kumi Kato goes deepest into that theme in her study of the intricacies of the symbiotic relationship of the women who dive for abalone in Okinawa with their environment. 142 Book Reviews Section Eleanor Rimoldi’s is the only comparative study: of tiny, highly urbanized Waiheke Island in Auckland harbour, and comparatively huge and rural Bougainville, which has autonomy within Papua New Guinea (PNG). Both see themselves as “treasure islands” vis-a-vis larger neighbours of which they are a part (Auckland and PNG), and emphasize their differences and internal unifiers to create an identity culture. Tony Whincup, a master of the art of photography, focuses on its role in social research. He uses images of the Kiribati canoe to show a “symbolic system through which the interplay of experience, social structure and sources of expression is mediated and made manifest” (p.151) to record shifts in gender roles, skills, values, economy and spirituality. While the emphasis is naturally on island cultures, there is little comparison with cultural enclaves in continental situations, and it is difficult to discern how far distinctions of island cultures are due to geographic as against social isolation. Of the 17 authors writing on small island cultures, none lives in a small island culture, and only one originated from such a culture. It is to be hoped that SICRI can work to increase participation by people of small island cultures. The islands studied are mostly in the Pacific (10 – or 12 if we include two on Okinawa, the only two from Asia). The 3 from the Atlantic are British (Channel Islands, Scilly and Falklands). The two from the Indian Ocean were former British territories. The Pacific emphasis is to be expected since this conference was held on Norfolk Island, but is hoped that extra efforts can be made to ensure more balanced participation in future. Nevertheless, it is an excellent collection and contribution to the understanding of island cultures. Ron Crocombe Cook Islands & Professor Emeritus, University of the South Pacific [email protected] ______________________________________________________________________ Îles Funestes, Îles Bienheureuses. Gaële de La Brosse, Ed. In French. Paris, Transboréal, 2004 (Chemins d’étoiles, nº 12, August), 270 pp, ISBN-10: 2-913955-27-4, 20 €. The editors of the magazine Chemins d’étoiles [Star Routes] turned their August 2004 number into a monographic study of island themes, and they executed their plan very well: the volume surprises the reader with its high production quality, pleasing design, and profuse illustrations. The book’s almost three hundred pages take us on an expertly guided journey of discovery of curiosities and information about islands without limit in time or space. Any aspect related to islands is valid; and thus, in reading the volume, we come to learn data and histories which were unsuspected, and which otherwise we might well never have known. 143 Book Reviews Section The monograph is structured in sections which contain articles united by a common theme, under a brief, defining epigraph. The diversity of subjects is as wide as that of the professions of the contributors, who are travellers, journalists, anthropologists, photographers, naturalists, geographers or historians… in every discipline, the contributors find a subject of study, theme or inspiration related to islands, real or imaginary, with which they have worked during their professional careers, and which they have explored at greater length in recently published books. The freshness and energy of the book spring from the intertwining of personal visions and unique, vital experiences; and this without leaving behind scholarly rigour, when necessary, or accurate accounts of the real environment of each one of those experiences in which we quickly find ourselves involved when we begin reading. The book begins with a section of “Cheminements” [Developments] (pp. 8-45) which contains five articles: by a writer,